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Legislative Roundup Week Six

Associated Press

As we enter week six of this year’s state lawmaking session, our legislative roundtable series continues with an in-depth look at how our legislators are addressing public education. After fierce partisan debate, last week, the Florida House approved a sweeping public education bill (HB 7055) that creates a new private-school voucher program. The nearly 200 page bill also makes a broad spectrum of other changes on everything from school testing to how much public funding charter schools can receive. We’ll hear voices from both sides of that debate.

 

Plus, we sit down with Constitutional Law expert, Professor Pamela Seay from FGCU’s Department of Justice Studies for a closer look at bills moving in the legislature that may raise red flags when it comes to potential conflicts with the U.S. Constitution.

 

 

Rachel Iacovone is a reporter and associate producer of Gulf Coast Live for WGCU News. Rachel came to WGCU as an intern in 2016, during the presidential race. She went on to cover Florida Gulf Coast University students at President Donald Trump's inauguration on Capitol Hill and Southwest Floridians in attendance at the following day's Women's March on Washington.Rachel was first contacted by WGCU when she was managing editor of FGCU's student-run media group, Eagle News. She helped take Eagle News from a weekly newspaper to a daily online publication with TV and radio branches within two years, winning the 2016 Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Award for Best Use of Multimedia in a cross-platform series she led for National Coming Out Day. She also won the Mark of Excellence Award for Feature Writing for her five-month coverage of an FGCU student's transition from male to female.As a WGCU reporter, she produced the first radio story in WGCU's Curious Gulf Coast project, which answered the question: Does SWFL Have More Cases of Pediatric Cancer?Rachel graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor's degree in journalism.